1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computerized systems and methods for maintaining medical records, and particularly to a system and method for portable medical records that permits a patient to carry an electronic version of the medical records upon his or her person while maintaining patient privacy.
2. Description of the Related Art
Very few people, if any, carry their medical records around with them. Many people have portions of their hardcopy and computer-based medical records scattered throughout different locations, such as their homes, offices, hospitals, and various health care providers' offices. Often, people simply do not know where their medical records are located.
In numerous instances, healthcare providers have erroneously convinced patients that the provider owns the medical record and not the patient. Therefore, many providers refuse to give the patient his/her medical record. It is critical that each person has a copy of every treatment episode that may be encountered by the person at any and all medical facilities so that all treatments are documented in order to provide healthcare providers with a comprehensive and accurate patient history. Moreover, these documents are critical because medical records or portions thereof frequently get lost.
In addition, these medical records are critical in cases of malpractice resulting in medical claims and lawsuits. In other words there exists a long felt need for a medical records “black box” that is conveniently updated with each medical episode and that can be examined in the event that something goes wrong to determine the root cause(s) of the problem.
The healthcare industry is the only industry in America where nearly 100% of the people must be a part of from months before birth, while they are living, and in many instances after they are dead.
There is a long felt need for a method, process, or system that has the capability to play a significant role in revolutionizing the healthcare industry by providing people with the capability to have their patient medical data readily accessible, and in an electronic media so that the data can be used to: 1) possibly save the patients life by providing the medical data to the healthcare professional in a complete, accurate, concise, cost-effective and timely manner for effective medical treatment of the patient regardless of location; 2) provide the patient's medical data for treatment purposes involving emergency situations, such as when traveling, loss of prescriptions for medications (especially necessary with patients with diabetes, epilepsy, cardiac patients, patients with special needs, and the like), dental records, eye glasses, etc.; and 3) drastically reduce medical triage costs in emergency situations where the patient is not seen at the facility where her/his medical records are being maintained. It is estimated that medical triage costs involved in vehicular accidents amount to over $300 per episode. Most of these costs could possibly be eliminated if the patient has a medical record in his/her possession at all times.
Moreover, there exists a long-felt need for a portable medical record that can be used by anyone interested in his/her healthcare and well-being, medical facilities, hospitals, nursing homes, healthcare providers, managed care organizations (MCOs), health maintenance organizations (HMOs), legal investigators relative to crimes and personal identification verification, coroners, school systems, travelers, motor vehicle operators, hazardous waste movements, tracking, and the like.
Patients and their healthcare providers would like to have a system that can be used to collect, store, maintain, and retrieve patient medical data in outpatient or inpatient settings. For example, approximately 97.1% of people in the United States are treated on an outpatient basis yet most patients do not have a medical record immediately at their disposal during these treatment episodes. That is to say, documentation is minimal, at best. When these patients are referred to other providers, clinics, HMOs, MCOs, and other healthcare facilities, they often take a hardcopy, portions of a hardcopy, or no medical record at all.
The healthcare industry needs a system that could dramatically improve outpatient care by creating an electronic medical record for each patient seen by outpatient providers; providing medical data to any authorized providers treating the same patient; by possibly reducing major illness and death due to drug contra-indication's; being an entry point for care management on an outpatient basis; allowing the provider treating the patient to send the patient's entire and current patient medical record to the aforementioned healthcare facilities; and allowing healthcare professionals to treat patients based upon concise, accurate, and current patient medical data for quick and accurate entry of treatment rendered into the patient's medical record at the time of treatment.
Moreover, there exists a need for a system that can be used to keep accurate records for: financial data, such as, credit cards, bank account data, deeds, birth certificates, etc; positive identification by using a digital photo; tracking school students' medical records, including immunizations, ADA requirements, and other conditions; tracking footprints of infants in case of emergencies, etc; tracking transportation and movement of hazardous materials; and accurately tracking and storing virtually any type of data.
Additionally, there is a need to ensure privacy and security for personal medical record information and the other aforementioned information. Access to these records should be secure and controlled by the owner of such sensitive records. In the case of medical records, these issues have garnered sufficient interest and strength to foster development of a number of broad rules for privacy and security under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. Additionally, patients desire improved communication with their medical providers, mechanisms to reduce errors in their medical care, and better coordination of care among their various medical providers. A system that could address the aforementioned issues would be highly desirable.
Thus, a system and method for portable medical records solving the aforementioned problems is desired.